Ever since Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman took his post in August 2019, he has cracked the whip on OPEC+ compliance, pressuring, scolding and cajoling quota violators to step up their production discipline. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now He has vowed that Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest member and the world’s biggest crude exporter, would no longer tolerate free riders and bear an uneven burden of balancing the oil market on its own. So what a turnabout on Jan. 5, when he announced a surprise unilateral 1 million b/d production cut for the kingdom – about 10% of its current output – even as four-year oil ally Russia, the least compliant OPEC+ member, lobbied for […]